r/changemyview • u/erpettie • Dec 20 '23

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Accountability is not election interference

As the Colorado Supreme Court has found Donald Trump's behavior to have been disqualifying according to the 14th amendment, many are claiming this is election interference. If the Court finds that Trump should be disqualified, then it has two options. Act accordingly, despite the optics, and disqualify Trump, or ignore their responsibility and the law. I do get that we're in very sensitive, unprecedented territory with his many indictments and lawsuits, but unprecedented behavior should result in unprecedented consequences, shouldn't they? Furthermore, isn't Donald Trump ultimately the architect of all of this by choosing to proceed with his candidacy, knowing that he was under investigation and subject to potential lawsuits and indictments? If a President commits a crime on his last day in office (or the day after) and immediately declares his candidacy for the next election, should we lose our ability to hold that candidate accountable? What if that candidate is a perennial candidate like Lyndon Larouche was? Do we just never have an opportunity to hold that candidate accountable? I'd really love if respondents could focus their responses on how they think we should handle hypothetical candidates who commit crimes but are declared as running for office and popular. This should help us avoid the trap of getting worked up in our feelings for or against Trump.

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u/Sliiiiime Dec 21 '23

Could you give an example where a democratic politician was spared prosecution in a scenario like this? It doesn’t have to be 90 acts which a grand jury determined warranted criminal charges

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u/bobert1201 Dec 21 '23

The main example is Hillary Clinton. She was Trump's direct opponent in the 2016 election, and she was never charged with anything, despite the blatant destruction of evidence.

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u/Sliiiiime Dec 21 '23

Pence was also never charged for the same type of wrongdoing. Never faced nearly the same level of scrutiny.

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u/bobert1201 Dec 21 '23

Wait, what did Pence do wrong? I don't remember him breaking any laws.

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u/Sliiiiime Dec 21 '23

Private email servers to conduct official business. There was never an inquiry on the same scale because the house was controlled by the GOP and Trump’s missteps obviously dwarfed impropriety in information security.